-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- On Thursday , Scotland goes to the polls to consider leaving the United Kingdom . I 'm praying they say no . For their sakes and for our sakes as fellow Britons . We need each other .

Do n't get me wrong : the English , the Scots , the Welsh and the Northern Irish are all very different people . You can tell it in the accents -- as an Englishman , I find it almost impossible to do a passable Scottish voice because I just ca n't sustain the requisite level of anger . And while the English are known for introversion and a terror of being noticed , the heat generated by the independence referendum has been a testament to the Scots ' uncompromising desire to say what they 're really thinking .

You see those differences marked in the landscape .

Journeying from London to Glasgow to observe the campaign , I was struck by the sudden shift in geography as our train crossed the border . Where England is small and crowded , Scotland is huge and empty .

English fields give way to massive Caledonian hills covered in green trees with bald patches of purple flowers . The valleys look like God smashed a fist into the soil -- wild , deep and jagged . That righteous Scottish temper showing through again .

But it 's precisely these differences that have made the Union between our countries so remarkable -- and so important . For 300 years , we have sustained a political alliance between nations with distinct cultures that has produced one of the world 's most successful experiments in getting along against the odds .

It 's a relationship of convenience , of course -- begun in part so that Scotland could share in our imperial ambitions . And , as such , Scotland 's presence in the Union has been sustained hitherto largely by good will . We may all have different understandings of our identity , but we share a common understanding of our needs .

This began to change in the years after World War II .

As the empire vanished and industry declined , so the economic outlook of Scotland and England began to diverge . A turning point was the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 -- a right-wing leader who may have helped raise living standards in Scotland but whose faith in free markets became increasingly at odds with the Scottish preference for a well-financed public sector .

Scotland could have rallied to the left-wing Labour Party , but Labour , too , moved drastically to the right and left many of its working-class constituents behind .

The credit crunch challenged the idea that the Union was impervious to economic shock and discredited our political leadership in London .

Many Scots turned toward independence as an alternative way of ordering their affairs -LRB- while many Englishmen drifted toward the conservative United Kingdom Independence Party -RRB- . Hence , much of the campaign for independence has centered not around nationalist themes , but socialist ones instead .

Its supporters imagine that if freed from the more right-wing English , they 'd be able to spend more and invest in public services . In fact , the opposite is true . Such is the likely size of an independent Scotland 's debt , and so uncertain is the future of its currency , that it would almost certainly have to raise taxes through the roof .

That brings us back to the benefits of sticking together . They are both material and emotional .

On the material side , Britain may have been through a tough period recently , but it is now growing mightily . We are predicted to overtake the perfidious French in the size of our economy by 2020 -- making us the fifth biggest in the world .

Our accomplishments in the fields of constructing a welfare state or investing in high-tech sectors have been made possible by sharing resources and talent . Likewise , in a frighteningly insecure world , we all benefit from a united defense . OK , so Britain 's army no longer patrols an empire . But it is still one of the most powerful in the world , boasts a nuclear deterrent -LRB- moored in Scotland -RRB- and is a lynchpin of the Atlantic alliance .

The army is perhaps at the heart of the emotional case for the Union .

Standing together , we 've helped win two world wars and seen off the Argentine invasion of the Falklands in 1982 . Soldiers have fought in defense of their constituent countries , but always under the banner of the United Kingdom . The ties that bind us , then , are historical and poetic .

Every New Year , we Britons sing `` Auld Lang Syne '' -- written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns .

It 's a song about the importance of remembering old friendships : `` And there 's a hand my trusty friend ! / And give me a hand o ' thine ! / And we 'll take a right good-will draught , / For auld lang syne . '' It might seem silly to reduce a decision about the future of a nation to a few lines of a song sung drunkenly and off-key at midnight , but friendship is a precious thing that men will give their lives for . Many , many British soldiers have done so in the past . I would save the Union out of respect for their memory alone .

To the Union and the world , the Scots have brought poetry both sublime and hilariously bad .

Schoolchildren across the UK still read the awful lines of William McGonagall that serve as a primer for how not to write . Scottish geniuses -- Adam Smith , David Hume , James Watt , Robert Louis Stevenson , James Braid , Kenneth Graham , Sir Walter Scott , Muriel Spark , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- have also given us all the invention of classical economics , a proud tradition of banking , color photography , the flushing toilet , golf , hypnotism , penicillin and the television set .

The locals have also supplied Britain with its last hopeful myth : the rumored existence of the Loch Ness Monster . It 's nonsense , of course , but a reminder -- again -- of how much mystery and wonder the Scottish countryside brings to the UK . We are hoping to reintroduce wolves there .

If Scotland votes this week for independence , we will divorce with dignity -LRB- excepting a few rows about debt and nuclear weapons -RRB- . But the United Kingdom will miss her dearly .

We will be reduced and forced to think afresh about who we are and what we stand for . If I 'm honest , the prospect of a Union dominated too heavily by the English worries me . We 're simply not as loquacious or romantic as our Scottish cousins .

@highlight

Historian Timothy Stanley wants Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom

@highlight

He notes that the historical relationship changed after World War II

@highlight

Scots ' quest for a wider social safety net may be hard to achieve alone , he says

@highlight

Stanley says he 'd miss England 's romantic , talkative partners if they go